Making Net-surfing as Easy as Pie

The Internet is one of our modern-day miracles. It unites us with people all over the world. It allows us to view information that we would otherwise be unavailable to us. Using it is probably easier than "easy as pie". And one of the things that helps us access the Internet, is the proxy server.

A proxy server is something like an arbitrator between the computer you are using and the server that you are trying to access. This concept becomes easier to understand once you understand how it works. Suppose there is a website that is accessed time after time from a particular computer. This site gets saved in the cache of the proxy server. So, when somebody else tries accessing that website, the page is pulled up from this cache.

The advantage of this style of functioning is that the process becomes noticeably faster. This is because the proxy server can do without contacting the real server of that website to view it. The site has already been placed in the proxy server's cache.

Web proxies are proxy servers that limit their job to the World Wide Web. Sometimes web proxies are used to intercede websites that are provocative or offensive. They also serve another, perhaps more important, function of blocking viruses that may be present on the webpages that are being read. In fact, a number of organizations make use of proxy servers to perform these very functions. A company could even intercede its employees from viewing a particular website by making use of a proxy server. Notably, the user is usually unaware that the work is being done by the proxy server.

There are many other kinds of proxy servers that are seen in the web world. These include transparent proxies, split proxies and reverse proxies. Open proxies are proxy servers that are the haunts of spammers and Internet Relay Chat users.

There is also something called an anonymous proxy server. This offers anonymity, and hence, privacy, to the user. It does this by hiding the IP address of the user. As a result, the number of junk mails and spam that one would otherwise get a profusion of are diminished significantly. It is good to use an anonymous proxy server because it keeps you protected from hackers.

Certainly, there is far more to proxies than this. But the next time you are able to quickly access your favorite webpage, make sure you silently thank your good old proxy server!

Virtual Web Servers: Perfect For Mid-Sized Web Hosting Needs

The internet has exploded over the last ten years with many people doing more and more tasks online everyday. As the internet continues to grow, the amount of space available for web sites to expand will shrink. Another very important fact that needs to be considered when creating a web site is how you are going to host the web site.

Large companies can afford to have a dedicated web server or servers, but smaller companies and individuals usually can not afford to have a dedicated server for their web site. For these individuals there are a few alternatives available. They can either use a web hosting service to host their web sites, or they can use a virtual web server to host their web site. Both of these alternatives have strengths and weaknesses.

A web hosting plan usually allows you to upload your web files to their server and then they configure everything so that anyone on the internet can access it. These plans are usually fairly inexpensive, but they are also limited in the amount of options that you can configure on your own.

However since the configuration of these plans are very easy, you do not need to have a large internal I.T. department to implement your plans. Web hosting plans are also a very good fit for your web site if you do not need to have access to a database.

Virtual web servers are a great way to maximize the use of a single server to service many web sites across several domains. The virtual web server uses one server and one operating system to host many different web sites. The difference between virtual web servers and hosting plans is that you have access to mail, FTP, and all of the configuration files on the virtual server.

This gives you quite a bit more control over all of the functions that a normal web server would allow you to do. However you need to know more about configuring a web site if you use a virtual web server. The best thing about a virtual web server is that you have much more control and the ability to do many different things that you can not do with a web hosting plan.

Usually it takes a person with quite a bit of experience to be able to successfully setup, maintain, and configure a web server. The problem with this is that there are not enough of these experienced people to prepare a web server for all of the individual web sites on the internet today.

One way to help fix this problem is to use virtual web servers. A virtual web server allows one very experienced person to setup a single server that will be able to host many different web sites across many domains. This also allows different web sites to be configured individually and be able to use more resources than they would be able to use if they were not hosted on a virtual web server.

Since each web site can be fully configured, you will have quite a bit of control over all of the different features of your web site.

A virtual web server allows each web site to have its email, FTP access, and many other configuration files to be configured exactly the way you want them to be. Also a virtual web server allows access to different types of databases which can make your web site more dynamic.

Many virtual web server plans allow unlimited email addresses and built-in spam filters and virus protection. They also allow unlimited anonymous and non-anonymous FTP sites, so that you can offer file upload and downloads to your clients.

However the best feature of a virtual web server is that you have complete control over how your web site is configured to run, so you can do almost anything that you want to do. You do not have to be an expert, because many of these services offer a management tool, so that you can do all of the configurations without knowing exactly how to do it by hand.

USA Reseller Web Hosting: Unix or Microsoft?

If you're in the USA, and you're planning to get into the USA reseller web hosting industry, you need to consider one major issue, first and foremost: would you like to offer Unix-ready features along with Microsoft-only ones?

Offering Microsoft-only services may seem to be the smart choice, but supporting Unix is its own asset, which could open a world of opportunities for you as a USA reseller web hosting outfit. In fact, if you have avenues to ask for both Microsoft and Unix support from your web host, all the better!

One downside to reselling web space instead of putting up your own server is that you don't get to control the basics. As a reseller, you may be able to change things around via the standard control panel. You may even have limited access to certain features like merchant accounts and secure site hosting. But when you want to switch between operating systems, or OS-es - it's unfortunately not your call, but your web host's.

Web hosts determine the kind of OS-es that run on their servers. Many web hosts offer both Windows and Unix features, by using Unix machines as servers, and then just running Windows programs and servers within these machines. Over time, Unix server OSes have become increasingly tolerant of Windows programs, which makes a Unix server a sweet deal for web hosts and resellers alike.

Unix servers are cost efficient because they are ideal for running open source programs. Preferring open source programs help save on operational costs, since they're mostly free for use, depending on the specifications of the persons or outfits who developed the codes to be used. When you run paid programs or servers on your machines, you don't only need to think of the cost of buying the software - you also need to consider the potential costs of license renewal.

There is, after all, no assurance that software licensing will cost the same throughout the years! And you have to consider that in your profit projections if you are running a webhost. Thankfully, you don't need to be concerned with that as a reseller. However, as a reseller, you should be aware of what software your potential customers will need.

If your web host only supports Unix and open source features, you run the risk of losing a big part of your clientele. But you run the same risk if your host only supports Microsoft and Windows! As a USA reseller web hosting outfit, you should be intimately aware of the needs of your target market.